Jimmy Two-Shoes: The Early Draft
by BrownTrousers
Summary: Jimmy was always a quirky, nice kid at heart. Unfortunately, thanks to a clerical error, he has been condemned to a place where he shouldn't belong, the realm of the damned: Hell. Surprisingly, Hell doesn't seem that bad, if you can put aside the misery, hatred, torture and punishment! (Based on the early concepts for the show which involved Jimmy being sent to hell on accident.)
1. Just an Ordinary Walk

It was a miserable, gray, dark night that day. The clouds trembled with rage as they thundered, their roars resonating throughout the entire city. Rain fell, downwards bound, plummeting towards the earth with a wailing screech. Crevices, even the most minor of holes on the street, were filled to the brim with great puddles of water, which shone black from the lurching clouds above. Faint remnants of litter, left abandoned in long forgotten corners of the pavement, were broken down by the fierce rainfall, dissolving the paper and spreading its ruins all across town. Worse yet, it was a Tuesday.

Beneath the silencer of the storm was a quiet, if somewhat annoying noise, of water splashing. Then, another one, slightly louder than the first, followed by another, and then another, and then another: each slowly increasing in volume, as though it trying to make itself heard over the raging thunder. Personally, though, Jimmy just liked hearing his footsteps splash in the puddles.

His dark brown shoes (which were, bizarrely, quite simple looking for someone so eccentric) squeaked as they skidded across the waterlogged pavement, sliding across the almost smooth surface. He gave out a small giggle, and then did it again. Jimmy was, admittedly, not the most sensible of people - and as mean as it may sound, he was a few edges away from being the sharpest tool in the shed - which could clearly be seen from the fact that, whilst everyone else was quietly tucked away in their own homes, sitting beside the nice warm fire, dry, and comfortable as can be, he was jauntily sauntering down the road in the cold and wet of the largest storm the town had ever seen.

He liked the rain though, in fact he liked most things (except from pickles, which he despised with a passion like no other). Through rain, or snow, through blistering heat or sub zero cold, once even during a particularly nasty bout of acid rain, he would, everyday, at anytime he felt like it, go outside, stretch his legs, and take a nice, relaxing walk, letting the wind take him wherever (well, alright, the wind wasn't actually taking him anywhere, but he had always liked the metaphor). So what if it was a little wet? A spot of rain wouldn't put him down, not on his walk. He was going to live life to its fullest. After all, you could never know when it would come to an end!

At some point in the journey (Jimmy was never much for paying close attention, so he couldn't really tell when he started), he began to sing a short, simple tune as he continued onwards, the pavement and mud squelching beneath the soles of his shoes as he walked.

"Ba ba ba, bada dadada…" he quietly sang under his breath, a big, toothy (or at least, it would've been toothy if it weren't for the two big gaps on either side of his teeth) grin plastered on his round face. He was so lost in his small little melody, in fact, that he didn't even notice the sign that was in front of him. Not until he hit it head-on, of course. With a small, surprised cry, he fell on his rear, before slowly picking himself, dusting his dress shirt off, and fixing his bowtie - a gift from his mother, which he cherished deeply - before looking at the offending object in question.

"Hey, excuse me- oh." He stared at the signpost, his mouth ajar slightly, and leaned in to read what was on it.

" ** _Danger, rouge bus spotted, stay alert_** _, yada-yada-yada_ …" he scratched his (hairless) chin, deep in thought as his amber eyes scanned the text. "Hmmm...that seems awfully contrived." He muttered, staring at the conveniently placed sign. Why someone would bother taking the time to write up, laminate, and then staple a warning sign on a lamp post on the side of a street seemed to escape him, but slowly a smile crept on his face once more.

"Glad to see that someone's looking out for others!" He declared, beaming from ear to ear. "Just hope I don't conveniently run into said bus. Boy, would that be embarrassing! Good things the odds of that are, like, a million to one!" And then, as though he had never stopped at all, Jimmy once more continued on his walk. Or at least, he did, for about ten or so more steps, before stopping dead in his tracks again. Wait, he heard something- he could've sworn he did. Yes! There it is again, the screeching sound of rubber as it scratched against concrete, the sounds of screaming passengers as they went careening down a tight alleyway, the scratching sounds of paint as it scrapped against the sides of th-

"Ah, runaway bus!" Yelped Jimmy, who launched himself backwards, just barely managing to dodge the aforementioned bus, which had just now gone flying off of a convenient nearby cliff. He panted, at a loss for words, his fourteen years of life flashing before his eyes. Jimmy's chest rose and fell, and beads of sweat slowly dripped down his forehead. "Phew, * _huff*_ that was a _*huff*_ close call." He gave a small, nervous laugh as he shakily picked himself up from the ground.

"Aaaanyway!" He cried, the joy back in his voice, "I should really be getting back to my walk! Good thing there's no more runaway buses to worry about! Or is it busi? Buseses?" He quietly (scratch that, loudly) pondered the thought of the plural of bus in his head as, with a spring in a step, and a happiness like no other, another, entirely unrelated bus, with absolutely zero connection to the previous one, lost control as its wheels spun around on a particularly slippery patch of road, and crashed right into poor little Jimmy, who - as several tons of steel impacted his body - was promptly and brutally smashed into gory pieces.

Now Jimmy had felt pain before, there was no question about that. Often he found himselfs getting into tight scraps and the like, not always without fault on his part, and he had his fair share of bruises, and cuts, and scratches by now. But this kind of pain absolutely killed, like nothing he had ever seen before. Speaking of seeing, he noticed a small, almost eye-like mass of white flash dangling on his mangled cheek. Coincidentally, he also noticed a very large blind spot in his vision. That, was very likely not good.

He tried to get up, but was hindered by the fact that, after he was literally hit by a bus, his legs had detached, and flown off the cliff with the earlier bus. He hacked a bloody cough, spitting out teeth and chunks of bone marrow, looked up towards the sky dizzily, as his mind slipped in and out of consciousness, as though this was a dream reaching its end. The clouds were clearing now, and he noticed the telltale sign of bright yellow light as the sun cheerfully bared down on the earth, seemingly unaware of the tragedy that had just occurred, still as bright and as beautiful as ever.

That would be the last Jimmy would see of the sun for a long time. And, as he took a long, deep, final breath, he died.


	2. Waiting Room Blues

If in centuries long before you and I, you were to ask God, wherever he is now, what exactly Heaven and Hell was, he'd first tell you to get on your hands and knees to pray to him, and second, tell you that the simple purpose of the system was to sort out the good eggs from the bad eggs: Sending the vile and rotten down to Hell for eternal punishment by Lucifer and his ilk, whilst the nice and noble would be sent up with him in Heaven, their reward for their continual good behaviour, and a welcome rest from the hardships they faced.

Of course, as said prior, that was hundreds of years ago, and ever since YHWH had departed for places unknown, the angels and demons - all much less capable and powerful than the Lord himself - were left to manage the ethereal realms themselves, and it was under their careful, watchful, disciplined eye that the system devolved into layers upon layers of vast bureaucratic nightmares and management that even a qualified politician would gawk at, and promptly resign from office.

However, to be fair to the celestial caretakers, they are not entirely to blame. With more mortals in the universe came more dead bodies, and with more dead bodies, came more souls. A typical nine-to-five shift's workload, which once involved about a few hundred or so poor saps coming in to be judged, had now swelled to over 50,528 people, and that was just in the human sector. And as the millennia passed, that number only increased, and soon Purgatory was filled with tens of millions of the dead, all waiting to be judged. In order to combat this rapid growth, it was decided that just simply having Heavenly-Magistrates from the trials of old just wouldn't do in this increasingly modern society: they had to adapt, else the whole system would collapse in on itself.

It was as such that the VSR (Virtue-Sin Ratio) Machine was invented. An advanced, if somewhat clunky machine that very peculiarly resembled an old computer from the eighties. The machine would, using records kept of every mortal's lives, analyse and examine every single action performed by the individual: nothing was out of sight, even the more...unsavoury parts.

That's not to say that the machine just simply looked at what a mortal did and then tossed them carelessly into either Heaven or Hell, oh no. It took other factors into account whilst it calculated the verdict. Things such as mental disabilities or ailments, health condition, societal influences and pressures, dumb mistakes they didn't mean and regretted afterwards, and behaviours of the time, were all accounted for, and would factor into the soul's final verdict.

After timing it with an atomic clock, the VSR Machine was found to calculate all of these factors within 11 to the power of -32 seconds, within 99.9999% degrees of accuracy. As such, the accuracy and utility of these machines was duly noted, and soon rose to become the primary judgement for almost all souls, manned only by a single judge who would read the machine's verdict, and then give the sentence. The small, almost miniscule margin of error was often ignored, or simply not cared about. After all, on average only about fifty-five errors occured each year. 

* * *

At one point, Jimmy could only assume that he had stopped dying, though he couldn't be exactly sure, on account of not being able to move properly. His head was spinning, he could feel his lungs push through the now broken and shattered rib cage that once encased them, and he felt a tad more ethereal than usual. He felt drowsy, tired, as if stuck in a continuous loop of falling in and out of sleep, over and over again.

But, at the very least, he wasn't dead anymore. And, in his books, that was a very big red plus, circles in blue pen and highlighted with yellow.

On instinct, he tried to move to get up, but the sharp pain that shot through him like lightning through an iron rod reminded him how that was not going to happen: reason being that his entire lower body seemed to be absent, including his legs. With a dejected sigh (which thanks to the damage done to his throat, came out more as a sickening gurgle), Jimmy let his one remaining eye wander, slowly crawling and gawking at the place he had now found himself in.

Something had definitely happened whilst he was out, because if his memory served him right (no matter how much it hurt to try and remember - literally), he was outside in the thunder/sudden inexplicable sunshine, having just been hit by a bus and with his innards left as a bloody, twenty foot streak of blood and gore. And, whilst Jimmy was able to admit that he wasn't exactly the smartest of folk, it was clear to see even for someone like himself this was not an open, expansive town with odd weather patterns and runaway buses, on account of it being a mostly featureless, poorly lit, and excruciatingly dull gray room, with almost annoyingly perfect straight edges.

As he lazily looked around (after all, it's not like he was in a hurry to get anywhere, ever again, as far as he knew), however, his one good eye noticed something. A glimmer of light, flashing at him from a section of the wall, was _just_ noticeable, if you knew where to look, or had a lot of time on your hands. At first, he thought it must have been some sort of doorway, and he was briefly both excited and anxious about meeting whomever (or, more worryingly, whatever) lay behind it. However, these short daydreams were soon quietly dismissed as, much to his disappointment, the source of the glimmer was found not to be a potential medical practitioner,, but a mirror: a cruel reminder of his horrific state.

To say the least, it wasn't good. Out of his left eye socket hung one of his amber coloured eyeballs, dangling by just a nerve out of the deep hole left in its wake. A jagged cut-off line, roughly around his pelvic area, was all that was left to remind him of his now long lost legs, and the one arm he had left was so horrifically mangled, so totally and utterly mutilated, that one would strain to even call it a flap of meat, let alone an entire arm. Worse still, though, was his head. A deep, deep gash ran down it, going through layers of tissue like a well-sharpened knife through a stick of swiss cheese. The wound went down to the bone (with the white cap of the skull in full view), and then some, with his brain just barely visible out of the many cracks and holes within his cranium. From the looks of things, he really doubted that a kiss on his bruises and a good night's sleep would be of much use to him. No, for something to even come close to maybe fixing this, he needed an utter miracle.

Luckily for Jimmy, it seemed as though some higher force was taking pity on him, because almost as soon as the thought crossed his mind, a miracle happened. Like a weaver with a sewing needle, his wounds slowly began to knit themselves back together, closing and resealing as though nothing had ever happened; there was not even a single hint of a scar. Like an explosion played in reverse, the caved in bone fragments of his skull slowly twitched, before suddenly pulling back, and perfectly returning to exactly the position they belonged. Even greater still, however, was his pelvis: from the stubs that barely protruded from his torso, his legs were _growing back._ In shock, he leaned back (which thanks to his repaired spinal cord, was a lot less painful), took a deep breath, and blinked, only to be suddenly overwhelmed by the return of depth perception - with the single closing of an eyelid his eye was just...there again.

"Woah." he said to himself, quietly, before leaping to his feet, a great, gap-toothed grin spreading across his cheeks. "That. Was. Awesmazing!" Jimmy felt at his chest, and when he felt the comforting silk of his bowtie in his fingers, he felt better, safer. Though at that moment, he couldn't exactly recall why. But that was relatively trivial compared to the rest of the current situation - after all, at least he had legs again.

With a much more keen eye, Jimmy noticed something that he hadn't whilst he was laying on the ground just minutes prior. There, tucked away in the deepest, darkest corner of the already dim room, was a door, which seemed to be trying it's very hardest to be completely and utterly unnoticed. "Well that's...strange. I never recalled seeing any doors earlier." He stood for a moment, paused in thought, before a lightbulb seemed to glow, and he smiled at himself triumphantly. "Must've been hidden by the blindspot. Jimmy, you mad genius, you've done it again!" He then began to go red at his own praise, shyly ducking down. "Oh really, it was nothing, it just sort of clicked in my head." Then, after taking a deep breath, counting to ten, and eating a breath mint, his hand slowly reached out, and pulled on the door handle, slowly opening it, and cautiously taking a step into the strange new world beyond it.

The first thing he noticed walking in was the bone-chilling gust of cold, which, after a few seconds of lingering, soon went away, as he quickly adjusted to the new temperature. The next thing he noticed (which, to be honest, he could've gone without noticing) was the excruciatingly bright lights, which stung his freshly repaired eyes worse than an entire swarm of hornets could ever hope to achieve. The third thing he noticed, was the suspicious hooded figure who sat behind the booth just a few feet in front of him. It was a person, or at least, Jimmy thought it was a person, though he wasn't entirely sure, as he couldn't catch even a single glance of anything underneath that jet black hood. The hooded figure seemed busy, angling its head downwards as it quietly mumbled something to itself. Awkwardly, Jimmy stood around for a minute or two, quietly waiting for an appropriate moment to speak - one which never seemed like it would come.

Coughing to get their attention, the hooded figure's head suddenly snapped upwards to face towards him, and internally, Jimmy give a little gasp, for there was nothing underneath that hood. No face, no head, no arms, no anything. And yet, it felt as though a thousand pairs of eyes were watching him. Sheepishly, he smiled. "Hello, I'm Jimmy...uh...Jimmy…"

Wait, what _was_ his surname again? No matter how hard he wracked his brain for answers, however, he just seemed to be drawing blanks. He wondered for a brief moment whether or not the bus had managed to hit him so hard it had somehow knocked out entire chunks of his grey matter as well. That would certainly explain it, at least.

The hooded figure laughed, in a tone that seemed somewhat at odds with the whole aesthetic it seemed to be going for. "Oh, I wouldn't worry about that, you've just got a case of partial amnesia. Don't panic, it's perfectly normal if you've died from a **real** big kinetic impact." The voice was shrill, high-pitched, and somewhat annoying (though Jimmy didn't feel as though it was his place to insult someone else for _their_ voice).

"Oh, thanks for the clarificat- wait, did you just say _**died**_?!" Jimmy suddenly shouted, as the cogs in his brain began to inexorably turn.

"Yes," said the figure calmly, though Jimmy felt that if it had eyes, it would probably by rolling them at him by now, "you are, as we say in the business, completely and utterly, irreversibly, undeniably dead."

Jimmy took a step back, breathing heavily. "Oh, no, no. There's gotta be some sort of mistake here! I can't be dead! I can't be! I have so many more things I have to do! I've not even had the chance to say goodbye to Mom and Dad!" The hooded figure gave a sigh.

"If I had a penny for everytime I heard that one…" it muttered to itself. "Hey kid, give me a sec whilst I get up your report, it'll take a little while. Feel free to have a flick through some of the leaflets we have on that table over there." Pale and stunned, Jimmy simply uttered "Okay." and dejectedly slumped back into a conveniently placed chair. As if on autopilot, his arm reached out, and grabbed one of the leaflets, seemingly at random. _The Afterlife and YOU - How to Deal with your Death._

It read:

" _If you're reading this leaflet, then congratulations: you have died. You have departed from the land of the living, and are ready to begin the first day of the rest of your (eternal) life. However, we understand this might be a bit hard to take in, and there is no doubt about the fact that you may be feeling certain emotions whilst reading these words. These emotions are called the five stages of grief, and they go as follows: Denial,"_

No, no this can't be happening, this isn't real. He wasn't dead. Please, it was barely a minor scratch, at worst! This was all a dream, definitely, it all made sense. That's why so many weird stuffs' happening! No way in real life would he be so stupid as to get hit by a bus right _after dodging another one._ No, he'd wake up soon and it'd have been all a dream, and he'd be at home with his mother and father (whose faces now seemed to have escaped him entirely) and all of this would be forgotten within a few weeks, tops. Right?

" _Anger,"_

As he read on, however, something new, something _different,_ came over him. It burnt like a flame that scoured his insides, and without even trying, he unconsciously began to tighten his grip on the leaflet, his knuckles going white as the paper began to crumple beneath his fingers. This was all that bus driver's fault! Not looking where he was going, not parking in time, going out and driving _in one of the biggest storms the town has ever seen!_

" _Bargaining,"_

Soon, Jimmy dropped to his knees, and clasped his hands together in prayer as he looked up towards the ceiling. "God, if you're listening, please, bring me back! I'm a good kid, I've always helped my parents when they want me to do chores, and I've never jaywalked a day in my life! Well, okay, that one was a little bit of a lie, but it was an accident, I swear! Please, I just want to go home, at least to say goodbye!"

" _Grief,"_

As Jimmy tried to read on, his amber eyes began to sting, and prick with tears as he cried, his body wracking with ugly sobs as he broke down. He tried to think back, to cast a line back to his life before the bus, and before he was in this dull, empty, lifeless room. But try as he might, he felt his memories slowly slip away, crumbling one by one as they all seemed to evaporate into dust. He forgot his home, the face of his parents, his friends (assuming he had any, he wasn't too sure), heck, even his own last name! Oh this was pointless. Why even try?

" _And finally, Acceptance."_

"Well, anyway!" said Jimmy, all of a sudden feeling rather chipper. "Guess I really am dead. Oh well, life carries on!" As a smile began to slowly spread across his face, he flicked over to the next page, and after a (seemingly pointlessly) long gap between the paragraphs, and read the small footnote at the bottom of the page.

" _Currently, you are being judged by the magistrate in the booth in front of you, where they are using one of the most advanced pieces of hardware ever devised to judge you for entry into either Heaven or Hell. The VSR Machine[1] will take a record of every action you have performed in your life, and will sort them into three categories: Sin, Virtue, and Neutral, blah, blah blah…" He flipped over, bored already of the technobabble. "Yada, yada yada, remember, even if you are condemned to Hell, don't think that it's the end of the world. In the end, your experience in the Afterlife is how you decide to experience it. So live it to the fullest - because it's all you're going to be doing for the rest of eternity."_

" _ ***Ahem***_." Jimmy leapt out of his seat in surprise, having completely forgotten about the hooded figure judging him.

"Yes?"

"I've gotten your file loading up right now, so just a minute or so more and you should be on your way to the afterlife." said the figure, who was staring intently at the screen.

"Awesome! Soooo, Mr. Hooded Figure, what's the afterlife like anyway? Do they have TV?" Jimmy sprung forwards after he asked the latter question, leaning over excitedly, staring at the figure expectedly. The figure chuckled quietly, and looked back up at him, taking a mug of coffee(?) that was on its table, and raising it to where its mouth would've been.

"Please, call me Phaneul. And we're just about to find out right now. But I wouldn't worry, you seem like a nice kid and-PFFFT!" Phanuel spat out its coffee, spraying it all over the window of the booth, before it quickly looked back to the screen, aghast.

"Um, hello? Phanuel? You okay in there?" Inquired Jimmy, who was, to be honest, getting slightly worried. Phanuel wheezed a bit, spitting up a bit more coffee droplets as he did so.

"Uh, yes, yes, Jimmy I'm alright." he said, not maintaining eye contact with the teenager.

"Hey, how'd you know my name?"

"Say," said Phanuel, changing the subject, "could you do me a _huge_ favour and just move a little bit to the left?" Jimmy perked up, and gave a toothy grin.

"Sure thing Phanuel!" He then took about two paces to the left, and stopped still.

"A little bit further."

Jimmy scuttled a little bit further. "How about now?"

"No, no, too far left. Just a little bit further right."

Jimmy sighed, exasperated, before moving the teeniest, tiniest bit to the right. "How's tha-Aaaahh!" Jimmy felt the ground give out beneath him, and soon, he was no longer standing in the judgement room with Phanuel, but instead plummeting down a bright, glowing orange shaft of smoke and light.

Phanuel shook his head, and sighed, looking at the monitor in disgust. "I guess sometimes, you can just never tell who are the good ones. Next."

 **JAMES "JIMMY" C. DORAN**

 **Age:** 14

 **Height:** 5'5''

 **Date of Birth:** February 7th, 1995

 **Date of Death:** August 19th, 2009

 **Cause of Death:** Hit by Bus

 **Household:** Middle Class

 **Society:** Suburban American

 **Major Sins:** Murder, Manslaughter, Battery, Assault with a Deadly Weapon, Genocide, Mass Murder, Battery, Jaywalking, Drug dealing, Substance Abuse, Acts of Terrorism, Vandalism, Threatening Death, Child Abuse, Domestic Abuse, Rape, Torture, Cannibalism, Use of Chemical Weaponry, Unlicensed Medical Practice, Counterfeiting, Forgery, Identity Theft, Impersonation of a Police Officer, Blasphemy, Intolerance, Hate Crimes.

 **Final Verdict:** _Hell._

 **AUTHORS NOTE: Sorry if it began petering out there at the end, I was writing this for hours and it's now like 2AM here, and I'm** ** _super_** **tired. Night folks!**


	3. What a Heinous Idea

It was a long way down.

Further and even further still, Jimmy fell, descending to God-knows-where with all the grace and dignity of a beautiful dove shot mid-flight by a hunter. He tried to cough as the strange, ethereal, golden smoke that made up the "walls" of the pit began to seep into his lungs, but the fierce winds (which pushed against his face to the point where his cheeks more accurately resembled an open parachute than any actual piece of human anatomy) made sure to put an end to that.

Somewhere, deep within the labyrinthine - yet also strangely empty - maze of his mind, deep within his subconscious, he began to recall a faint memory (which, with how quickly it descended into barely remembered mist, was more akin to a recollection of a dream) of a teacher of his once telling him about some scientific mumbo-jumbo called "Terminately Veiled City", or something like that. The exact details of what exactly it was escaped him, but whatever it meant, he felt fairly confident that it didn't apply in this situation.

"AAAAAAAAH!" screamed Jimmy, flailing his arms about his limber frame as he made a quick (and unorganised) descent into the unknown below him. He tried, for a brief second, to look downwards, to try and get a vague sense of where he was heading. Through all the tears that involuntarily gathered in his eyes and the sharp wind that made them sting, all he could see was just more of glowing amber that surrounded him.

It was as such, for some time (he estimated between three minutes and a bajillion years), that he let his primal fear take control over his every action - which mostly consisted of screaming and throwing his limbs about. But eventually, as his body realised that there didn't seem to be any problem, aside from falling very very fast into a place he had no clue about, slowly the adrenaline rush that had once consumed him began to subside, and was soon supplanted by another, more different feeling: boredom.

"Who knew that falling for so long, could be so tiring?" Asked Jimmy, to no one in particular (something he seemed to do a lot, now he thought about it), who felt himself beginning to yawn.

 _That got old fast,_ he thought to himself. And, after a few minutes of just blankly staring down into bright orange smoke, Jimmy felt himself begin to do something he wasn't sure he was that comfortable with: thinking about stuff.

"What was that guy's problem, anyway?" he pondered, casting his mind back to that Phanuel guy who was sitting at that weird computer thingy. He'd gotten the impression that he liked him (or at least tolerated him), but seems that he had guaged him wrong. Still, what did he have against him? Was it his whining? Was it his voice? Or did the small gap in his top row in teeth annoy him somehow? Or maybe, it was…

Jimmy, after much tribulation, managed to twist himself vaguely upright, and moved his hand to his mouth, into which he gave a long, deep breath, and gave it a quick sniff. Almost immediately, he recoiled. " _Urgh_! Maybe." Then again, he was pretty sure that there was a glass panel separating them from each other, and he doubted that his breath was bad enough to manage to phase through **solid glass.**

A few more indeterminate amounts of time (which he began to call 'indetermies', a new system of time measurement he had came up with to describe any length of time he had absolutely no idea for how long it had lasted) passed, and Jimmy began to feel himself wondering more and more things. Mostly stupid things, like ' _If money doesn't grow on trees, where does it?_ ', or ' _What is my last name anyway?_ ', and ' _How much longer is this going to take anyway?_ '

Idly, without even noticing himself doing it at first, Jimmy slowly began to rotate 360 degrees, spinning slowly around in a circle. After the third time the pit seemed to flip, he realised what he was doing, and that, in a way, he was actually having a decent bit of fun. "Cool!" he exclaimed, and with renewed gusto he began to see just how fast he could make himself spin around.

* * *

It was an awful, miserable, loathsome day in Hell. The three suns that rumbled distantly radiated heat at the worst, most uncomfortable of temperatures. The sky was a perfectly dreary shade of beige. The skin-like membrane of the pink trees that were scattered scarcely across its landscape pulsated disturbingly.

In the sombre cityscape, black smog billowed ominously from the great factory that sat dead in the centre of it, flanked on all sides by imposing skyscrapers. In a manner that was intentionally designed to allow every single soundwave to be heard, cries of pain, agony, and misery resonated from within the walls of the vast complex. People - monsters, 'humans', and some in between - hurriedly scurried along the pavement, trying (and failing) to avoid the suffering that the building almost seemed to radiate.

It was a sad, dreadful, completely despondent day. And Lucifer Heinous VII would have it no other way.

Beneath a truly colossal portrait of himself, the seventh Lord of Hell sat at his desk, a wistful expression on his face as he listened to the cries of agony from down below. "Ah, _misery_." he sighed. "There's really nothing quite like it." Lucifer leaned over his desk, to peer out of the window (no small feat, considering the hinderance his embarrassingly small stature was to him), his eyes falling upon a very miserable looking denizen of the underworld. Whilst their facial expression was covered by the large hockey mask in front of it, Lucifer could tell from his posture alone the utter state of despair they felt.

After more than eight centuries of lording over Hell, Lucifer had grown accustomed to picking up the smallest indications of misery (and, on particularly unproductive days, mere anguish) in a person: from the way their eyebrows were pointing, how hollow their eyes looked, the way they carried themselves, to even the way they moved their arm (if they had at least one to spare, anyway). Each and every single one of them made for his own enjoyment, because he knew, that no matter how slight, he was doing a job well done.

And, in complete and utter contrast to all those unfortunate souls that dwelled within his domain, Lucifer Heinous VII felt happy.

"Mr Heinous, sir?"

He felt a low growl involuntarily in the back of his throat. Or at least, he would've felt happy, if it wasn't for the irritating lisp of one Samael 'Samy' Garvin, his (in Lucifer's opinion, bumbling and idiotic, not to mention expendable) assistant. It seemed to be some kind of family tradition to pass on the annoying goblin from one Heinous to the next, much to the displeasure of Lucifer, who Sammy seemed to drive up the wall by his mere presence. Still, if there was one thing that he could give his assistant credit for, it was that he was very good at acting as a stress reliever for him to vent his frustration onto.

"What is it?" snarled Lucifer. "Can't you see that I'm enjoying the _view?_ "

Samy muttered under his breath, "Being so short I don't know how you can see it at all."

"What was that?"

Samy near enough leapt out of his wrinkled, green skin. "N-nothing boss! It's just that the next batch of new arrivals has just come in, and you need t-"

Lucifer hissed at him. "Watch who you're talking to Samy, **I'm** the one who makes the rules here, and **I'm** the one who says that I'm not doing it. I'm having a _me-day_." He smiled to himself blissfully, resting his stumpy legs on his desk.

"B-b-but sir," Samy stammered, "who'll give them the tour?" Lucifer seemed to ponder this for a moment, as the cogs in his brain started turning.

"Hmmm...Samy, you know how you've always been obsessed with that _Showbiz_ nonsense you love so much?" Lucifer inquired.

The goblin seemed to perk up at this. "Y-yes?"

"And how you've always wanted to give a performance, to the awe of thousands?"

A big smile began to spread across Samael's face. "Y-Yes!"

"Well then forget about it." Spat Lucifer. "There's no way I'm trusting the introduction of our latest arrivals to an incompetent creature like _you._ I want to make a 'good' first impression!"

Immediately, his assistant deflated. Looking miserably at the floor. "But sir, if you won't do it, and I can't do it, who will?" Lucifer mulled over his options in his head, thinking. Who would be the best, the greatest ('aside from yours truly, of course') even, at introducing the latest batch of miscreants to the first day of the rest of their eternal lives? Who would cause the most misery, who would crush any semblance of hope and joy left in their cold dead hearts? Molotov - his most loyal general - seemed a good choice, but he always seemed to take things over the top, to the point of ridiculousness. No, he wouldn't do. They'd sooner get somewhat entertained by his over-the-top personality.

For a moment, a dark thought crossed his mind, from the depths of who-knows-where: what about his _disappointment_ , Beezlebub? Lucifer shuddered. Not in a million years. That big, blubbering oaf would sooner lose focus and eat himself into a coma within the first minute. What about one of his guards? Again, no. They were only good at protecting him, and not much else. He groaned. So not Samael, not Beeze- the disappointment, not Molotov, and not a guard. Who else could there be? Who did he have under his service who truly could appreciate the act, nay, the _**art**_ , of misery. Then an idea popped into his head, and a cruel smile drew its way across his face.

"Samy!" he shouted at his assistant, who - in a fit of surprise - jumped more than twice his height in the air.

"Y-Yes your Heinous?"

"Bring me my telephone!" the demon demanded. "I have an important call to make." Samy looked at him, stunned.

"But sir, isn't your telephone right there?" he asked, pointing at the phone in question which sat on the desk, barely ten centimetres - at best - away from him. Lucifer snarled.

"Am I misheard? Bring. Me. My. TELEPHONE!" Sighing, Samy reached over, and gently nudged the telephone over to his boss. "There, was that so much to ask?" He tutted, dialing the number in, his devilish grin (he had been practicing) still on his face. Yes, he knew just who to call.

"Heloise, are you free? No? Well _**too bad!**_ I've got work for you to do..."


	4. Welcome to Miseryville

"A hundred-and-ninety eight, a hundred-and-ninety-nine, two hundred!"

Jimmy cried out triumphantly, his arms thrown in the air in victory. He felt invigorated, joyus, thrilled, and also a little bit nauseous. His stomach gurgled as he cradled it in his hands. In hindsight, it might not have been the _best_ idea to spin around two hundred times whilst also plummeting at several hundred feet per indetermy. Still, he had fun, at fun was what he was best at.

He had so much fun, in fact, that he almost was able to take his mind off of the fact that he was, as Phanuel said, completely and utterly dead. He briefly entertained the thought in his head, as his smile slowly began to recede. His family, whoever they were, were going to miss him, no doubt. And his friends, too, how would they cope? Did he have friends, actually? He tried to cast his memory back, to try and scrape together some semblance of a reminder of his living life, but all that came back were brief recollections of experiences with as many holes in it as swiss cheese.

And, for a brief, yet also eternal, moment, Jimmy felt very, very alone.

But then, he thought some more. He couldn't remember anything from back home, could he? Not his family, his friends, not his life, nothing. He had no more bridges, no more safety net to fall back on. It was scary, true, but also so _exciting._ He had a blank slate, a chance to start anew, a chance to meet new people, to experience new things, to make new friends, to learn and grow more in his new surroundings then he ever could back home. Soon, like a tide slowly creeping back up, his smile grew once more.

He'd make his eternity an eternity worth living. If life was truly what you made of it, he was going to make a palace.

Finally at rest mentally, Jimmy felt his muscles relax, and wistfully, he gazed around at his now familiar surroundings. At the beige fog that swirled around, like a vortex of orange and yellow, like a soft fire burning. And, as he sat back and truly began to appreciate the view, he realised that things seemed to be getting a bit brighter. And not in the metaphorical sense, may he had. Like, actual, literal, slowly becoming eye-wateringly bright. He looked down, saw only bright white light.

And, as he fell further, he saw something else, standing in sharp contrast to everything else. Something dark, something brownish-red, something that looked suspiciously solid, something that was slowly but surely getting closer, and closer.

Squinting his eyes, he also began to notice something - or rather, somethings - else. Small dots, mere pinpricks of colours, for the moment, but slowly he realised that they were getting bigger, and more detailed, and more easily discernible.

It was also then, slightly more alarmingly, that Jimmy noticed that he most likely would not be falling for much longer. And, with a sudden, sickening sound of splitting bones, he landed, kicking up a cloud of dust as he left a large, Jimmy-shaped crater slap-dab in the middle of the hard, jagged brown terrain.

Groaning painfully, the teenage boy slowly (and unsteadily) dragged himself out, his shattered legs beating against the inside of his personal ditch. Throwing himself at last onto his back, he was momentarily concerned about the fact that all of the bones in his body - bar a few - seemed to be broken. Crumpled, destroyed, and with a hint of jutting bone, his arms and legs lay astrew beside him. Until, to his amazement, they began to quickly knit themselves back together, and soon, he was back on his own two feet, beaming from ear to ear.

Jimmy may not have been the smartest kid ever, but even he was able to know that this isn't something that normally happens. He scratched his chin for a moment, before pointing upwards triumphantly, as though a lightbulb had just lit itself over his head. "Ding!" he exclaimed, confident with his theory.

He was dead, and was now in some sort of afterlife, that was something that had been established. And in the afterlife, you have to live out the rest of eternity (however long one of those are). Twice now, he had suffered injuries that, to his understanding, should be completely fatal. And yet, miraculously, they had been healed in mere seconds. It's almost as if there was a connection there.

It was almost if you couldn't die in the afterlife. _Jimmy, you mad genius!_ He exclaimed to himself internally, a sudden rush of excitement coursing through his now undead veins. He couldn't die, not anymore. And he couldn't be injured either - well, not permanently anyway. Awesmazing! He could do so much now, so many cool tricks and stunts, so many stupid yet captivating things, and he had absolutely nothing to worry about! Sure, it'd hurt, but at this point, he slowly began to become more accustomed to excruciatingly painful pain.

But then, even better, he looked around, and saw something that immediately stole his attention: there were other people here! And not just that, but so many different kinds of people, too! There were lumberjacks, and men in fancy suits (they were pretty snazzy looking, if Jimmy said so himself), people with black bandanas around their eyes, people with cool piercings and tattoos of all kinds, a guy stuck in a straight jacket, a few people wearing a few cool masks (he didn't know so many people liked to play hockey!), and some people who looked so strange he almost could have said they looked like monsters.

 _Woah, so many people,_ thought Jimmy, _I gotta introduce myself!_

He bounced over to one of the these strange people, and leapt in front of them. "Hi, I'm Jimmy! Nice to meet y-AAAAAAHHHH!" In the span of six and a half words, the strange man had managed to not only pick him up, but to fold him into quarters, and hurl him very, very far. _Wow! That guy's got a really good arm on him!_

Landing about fifty-to-seventy metres away, Jimmy managed to pull himself back to his normal shape, neatly pressing in the creases that had formed on his body until they were gone. Man, he really should eat a mint, though. That must be the second person he accidentally disgusted with his rotten-egg breath. That gave him a new idea: if he avoided breathing on these people, they'd want to talk to him, guaranteed! Sometimes, he really wondered where he got such genius from.

Jimmy walked up to a lady who particularly caught his eye, on account of her seemingly being about 50% metal, if the number of piercings she had was anything to go by. "Hey there, ma'am," he began, making sure to cover his mouth with his arm, "I'm Jimmy and-" quickly, the lady (who seemed to be mostly bald, aside from a few weird spikes on the top of her head) snapped her head towards him, and snarled at him. "Heh-heh-heh, nevermind!" he sputtered out quickly, swiftly scampering away from her.

 _Wow,_ he thought to himself solemly, _I'm_ _ **really**_ _not making that good of an impression, am I?_ Maybe he ought to try a different approach. He looked around, his amber eyes scanning every nook and cranny around, at every single person he could manage. They all seemed to be tough, and, as sad as it was to admit, a bit domineering. Still, maybe he needed a more aggressive approach - they'd respect that.

"Hey," he said as he marched towards someone, dressed like a strongman from an old circus routine, "I'm talkin' to you." Jimmy snapped, trying to make his voice sound deep and intimidating. Unfortunately for him, however, his attempt simply made himself sound silly, and to be honest, not even in the slightest bit intimidating. "You, me, right here, right now. We gonna talk, and we gonna be pals, got it?" he growled lowly, feeling very proud of himself. Surely, this would work!

Jimmy was pleased to see that he did not receive a violent response this time. Though he would admit, he'd feel a bit insulted that he did not receive a response at all. He frowned for a moment. "Um, hello?" he asked, waving his hands in front of the stoic strongman's face. "Anyone there? Helloooo, kid trying to make friends here!" Shouted Jimmy, throwing his arms out to his sides. "Jeez, some people." He muttered to himself, shaking his head. He then looked up at the man inquisitively: he seemed to be staring at something, very, very intensely, an expression of pure shock on his moustached face. What was he looking at, anyway? Jimmy began to gaze around, and suddenly, his jaw dropped as he finally began to take in his surroundings.

All around him, towering over yonder like a child with a magnifying glass towers over an ant colony, were mountains. And not any mountains, no no no. He could see big gaps all around their tops. Large, round holes that glowed a soft red - volcanoes. And not only that, but with further inquiry, he noticed that all around him were puddles, lakes, and even seemingly entire _oceans_ of lava! Further still, bright pink trees, shaped like fig-leaves dotted the landscape, the surface of their leaves pulsating oddly, like a chest rising up, and down. And, as they glared down at him so fiercely he had to shield his eyes, he gasped as he looked up. There was not one, not two, but _**three**_ suns! All unnaturally close to this strange world.

"Woah." was all he could say, as Jimmy, for a moment, was overwhelmed by the bombardments his new surroundings performed on his senses, as he took in the smell of smoke, the glaring of a trinity of stars, the distant sounds of roaring flames and people cheering (or was it screaming?), and the feeling of warmth against his skin. "This. Place. Is. Awesome!" he cried, leaping into the air, throwing his fist up high above his head. He gazed around, in childlike wonder, as he took it all in, until suddenly, there was a loud, reverberating, echoing cough, that made the hair on his skin stand on edge, and forced him to involuntarily leap high into the air.

" _ ***Ahem***_ ," went the voice, which, now that he listened closely, sounded feminine, and almost as if it was coming out of some sort of megaphone.

" _Welcome,"_ Said the voice, seeming to ooze almost nauseatingly passive-aggressive sweetness, " _to Miseryville."_


	5. Enter: Heloise

Heloise was not having a good day.

Well, admittedly, that was a bit of a misnomer: earlier on, it had even seemed like it would be a great one.

Her new neighbour was annoying - very, very annoying. All of them were, to a degree, and that was why after at least three weeks, Heloise would inevitably end up chasing them off, through threat, intimidation, or something she liked to call _Aggressive Convincing._ She was able to tolerate this one for about three days, before she finally cracked. It seemed that the little demon of a neighbour got some sort of kick out of seeing her frustrated: when she'd sleep, he'd play Runny and the Nosebleeds at full blast, when she'd sharpen the thorns of her rose-bushes, his dog would 'mysteriously' appear before her to mark its territory, and when she'd be hunting for another insect to pin to her wall, he'd appear, all loud and boisterous, and scare them all off.

Soon, it became clear to the former serial killer that this situation would absolutely not do: **She** was the one who caused the misery on this street, not some snot-nosed little imp. And she had him just where she wanted him - strapped to a metal operating table with no hope of escape and surrounded by dozens of sharp metal objects. But of course, **just** as she was about to plunge the scalpel into the little pest's heart, the phone _just_ had to ring, and of course, her shortstack of a boss _just_ had to get her to do his dirty work.

And it was so that Heloise now found herself here - tour guide for a horde of the freshly damned around the wretched hell-hole (she snickered) that they were going to live in for the rest of eternity. At least she was giving the go-ahead to cause as much misery as she wanted - now that was something she could agree with.

"Welcome," Heloise said to the crowd, voice positively oozing with false enthusiasm, who were all gawking at her (did they know how _stupid_ they all looked?) like she had three heads, "to Miseryville." There was an anxious murmur throughout the crowd, as they all quietly whispered to each other. "I'll be your tour guide, so _don't_ annoy me." she hissed, pointing at them menacingly. "If you have any questions, ask them now - _**and only now!**_ " A few of them stepped back as she suddenly started shouting at them, before feeling a little bit silly for cowering away from some little girl with a loud voice. Not silly enough to return to their original places, though.

Her teal eyes scanned over the crowd, who all seemed to be standing completely still, like statues of ice. Good, hopefully she'd managed to intimidate them into not daring to ask any. With luck, this whole thing would be over and done with soon, and then she can get back to doing the things that really mattered - like pulverising that annoying neighbour. The first quarter was all clear, half-way everything was looking good, three-quarters, perfectly still, and the last one-

"Oh! Oh! Pick me! Pick me!" screamed a voice in the distance, with a tone of voice a little too enthusiastic for her tastes. Squinting, Heloise tried to look over the horizon and pinpoint the source of the racket (no small feat, considering how close all three suns were to the planet), but all that she could see was a small hand waving in the distance. After a while of not receiving a response, it slowly drifted southward, and the person's voice eventually died down.

Unfortunately, it seemed as if that person had suddenly emboldened the damned souls in the crowd, as one by one they began raising their hands, and soon the whole area was engulfed by sound.

" _Where are we?"_

" _Who are you?"_

" _Why is it called Miseryville? I thought it was supposed to be Hell!"_

" _When is this tour going to be over?"_

" _Aren't you a little too young for this?"_

Heloise's eye twitched, as the barrage of questions continued to rain down upon her. Growling, she reached for the nearest heavy object - that being one of hundreds of statues of Lucifer Heinous the VII - and then threw it directly onto a small group of condemned souls. They were squashed easily, spurting out their bodily fluids like a crushed tomato. In shock, or horror (hopefully both, she thought), everyone suddenly fell silent, their arms falling back to their side.

"Any. More. Questions?" Heloise asked, breathing heavily. There was no response. "I said. _**ANY. MORE. QUESTIONS?!**_ " The crowd began shuffling at their feet, quietly twiddling their thumbs whilst quietly mumbling 'no' beneath their breath. Heloise snickered to herself, congratulating herself on misery well caused. Sometimes, she liked to imagine this place under her rule. She knew she'd do a much better job than that buffon of a boss who ruled over it now, anyway.

Still, that person who was waving earlier was on her mind. Well, they best hope not to run into her later on, or she'd be giving them more than just a piece of her mind.

"Good," she said smiling, "let's get this tour over with."

And in the far back of the crowd, dozens of rows behind her, Jimmy wondered to himself what exactly was the matter with that tour guide.

 **Author's Note: Sorry again for the shorter chapter, guys. I was having a bit of writer's block with this one, since I wasn't really satisfied with the way I was portraying Heloise in the earlier drafts, and I couldn't think of a way of depicting her accurately with the previous versions of the chapter. Also it was originally much longer, but I felt that it began waffling on unnecessarily long, like I'm doing right now (the little explanation at the start was originally its own sub-story).**


End file.
